Miles New Bike

Not bad for a free bike. We bought it off e-bay and when we got it, some parts were missing and one of the back wheels was bent. Instead of shipping it back for the repairs and parts, they just refunded our money and said keep it. It turns out that Schwinn is on eternal back order for a new wheel, but they did send us the fenders that go over the back wheels. All in all, it turned out to be a great deal, even if it rides a little lop-sided.

So, I think we're signing off for a while. It's finals time for John and I'm trying to get the house packed up little by little. John's last final is Friday May 15th. He should finish around noon and we hope to be on the road, headed for Philadelphia by 2:00. When we get back, we'll have one week to finish packing, load up the moving truck and it's off to Florida we go. If we're feeling super spunky we may post pics from our trip to NY and Philadelphia. Otherwise we'll see you in June with lots to catch up on.

Miles had so much fun swimming! Actually he loved the hotel all together. He loved running up and down the halls and riding the elevator up to our room on the 13th floor. He also really loved watching Sponge Bob Square Pants and some penguin cartoon on cable t.v.

"High on a mountain top, a banner is unfurled".... This song was actually written about the Kirtland temple because it was built on a hill above the town. The man who wrote the song (can't remember his name) was a convert from over seas and was also responsible for the mill, which picture is below. We actually didn't make it inside the temple because it closed sooner than we thought. But we're going to make a slight detour on our way back from Philadelphia and go to Kirtland again.

This house was originally a hotel. Later, a printing press was put upstairs which printed the first hymnal and the book of Commandments which became the Doctrine and Covenants. On the lower floor, the mummies and papyrus that became the book of Abraham were displayed.

Brigham Young's work shop, attached to the mill.

While the construction of the kirtland temple was still under way, the two existing mills in kirtland refused to sell wood to the Mormons because of their rising unpopularity. This halted the building of the temple for three months. Then a convert from over seas (same one who wrote High on a Mountain Top) "just happened to be" specially trained to build and operate a new style of mill. This mill was able to operate on 2-3 inches of water and produced a higher volume of wood than the two existing mills combined.

This room is where Joseph Smith translated the King James version of the Bible, and received revelation on section 84 (and others) of the D&C. It is on the second floor of the Whitney store.

Room of the School of the Prophets

The Whitney's master bedroom which they offered up to Joseph Smith.

The first Bishop's store house, first level of the Whitney's store

Whitney's general store. President Ronald Regan stated that this was the most accurately restored historic building he's ever seen. This is because Newel K. Whitney was the most meticulous record keeper.
The shoes back then didn't have a right or left. They would switch them back and forth for longer use.


Interesting tidbit: The church has just purchased property which they believe housed the store that Joseph Smith owned. The church is waiting to authenticate this before actually restoring anything. We've never heard about Joseph owning a store and the tour guide said it was because his store only lasted ten months. Apparentally Joseph Smith was too kind hearted for people in need and had the propensity to just give everything away for free.

We had a wonderful time on this trip. There is such a special spirit in Kirtland!! I can't wait to go back. If you have the opportunity, means, time etc... it is SO WORTH IT!

We've had a lot of "firsts" lately

Miles ate his first PB&J sandwich. He never eats sandwiches. He always just pulls the bread apart and licks the peanut butter and jelly or pulls the melted cheese off a grilled cheese sandwich. He actually ate 3 whole bites of his PB&J, bread and all, twice this week!! Yeah, I think lunch time just got a little easier.

Miles started stripping down into his birthday suite this week. The first time I noticed it I was putting in a load of laundry and doing the dishes and I thought Miles was watching TV. When I finished I walked into the living room. There was no Miles! Only a pile of clothes and a diaper. I found him playing with his toys in his room perfectly happy to be naked. Now, it's sometimes a challenge to get him to keep his clothes on.

Miles sat on the "big boy potty." Don't get too excited, we're not even close to potty training. But we were in the bathroom so I thought I'd ask him if he wanted to try to sit on the potty. "OK", he said. He was scared at first, I think of falling in, so it didn't last long. But, I praised him to the sky and he really liked that so he said, "again" and we did it again and he liked it. We haven't done anything like that since, but anytime we can have a brief, positive experience sitting on the potty will only help when we are ready.

Eli fell off our bed:( Yes, the one I use a stool to crawl into. It was such a rough, long day and it was still going at 9:00pm. John was at school, I was exhausted, both the boys were crying and all I wanted to do was sit in front of the TV for 10 min while I drank a cup of hot chocolate. I went into Miles room for the third time and told him to go to sleep. Then I wrapped Eli up in a blanket and put him on my bed (his portable crib was in the living room and I didn't feel like moving it into the bedroom for a short while, but I also didn't want to hear Eli crying in the living room while I was trying to take a breather). I put some pillows around him trying to make it so he couldn't roll off. I thought I did a pretty good job. I even put some blankets and pillows on one side of the bed(guessing that if he did roll off it would probably be on that side....does that tell you how "done" I was. I was actually creating a padded area to break his fall)Well a few minutes later I heard a thunk and screaming! I ran in there and of course Eli fell off the other side of the bed, the one where John's bike is. I balled, and called John and told him what happened, and he came right home to give me moral support. Eli was OK. He had a little bump on his head that went away the next day and his pajamas had grease and tire marks on them from hitting the bike. I felt like such a bad mom. Miles was at least three months older than Eli is now when he first fell off the bed.

Eli tried cereal for the first time and loved it. I know your supposed to wait until 6 months (Eli is 5 months) but he kept staring at me when I was eating and it seemed like he would open his mouth when I opened mine (if we were at my grandma Hurst's house he'd be eating ice cream already:) Love you and miss you grandma!!) I've also had a few dental appts where I've been gone 4 hours (everything takes 3x as long at the U of M dental school) and he WON'T take a bottle, so I thought we'd try this for Johns sanity and Eli's hunger. I think we'll introduce pears soon.

And last, Miles and Eli had their first bath together. I always bathed them separately because Miles is a wild child in the tub. He splashes and kicks and throws tub toys in the air, really high ,to see them splash in the water. I just didn't think Eli would stand a chance in there with him, but Miles did really well and Eli was entertained.